


veins run red and blue

by andchaos



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist!Mickey, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:35:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey moves to New York to be an artist, meets a redhead from Buffalo, and everything turns out okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	veins run red and blue

**Author's Note:**

> first one to tote up how many times I compare Ian to the sun/stars/anything from space wins the knowledge that I like Ian Gallagher too much
> 
> title from 400 Lux by Lorde xox  
> -  
> -

          Mickey’s twelve and he loves to draw. He keeps his passion well-hidden though, and only unearths his sketchpad in the dead of night, the moonlight or a flashlight lighting up the page before him. He stays up until sunrise, his hand flying across the page, and if he’s honest with himself, he’s alright at it. If he really loves what he’s created by the time dawn comes, he shoves it under the loose floorboard that he unfastened himself when he first bought the sketchpad. If he only sort of likes his piece, he flicks his lighter against the edge and watches the page turn to ashes on his bedroom floor. Since there’s not that much room in his hiding place, he can only keep so many drawings; he has to save the limited space for the really good ones. All the others go up in flame. No one can ever find out about what he does in the dark.

          Mickey does other things in the dark, too. Fucks the wrong people, jerks off to the wrong porn. Those things are just as bad, but easier to keep quiet about.

 

* * *

 

 

          Mickey’s sixteen when his sister finds out about both his secrets.

          He comes home from a grocery run to find her sitting on his bed, a piece of paper clutched in her hands. At first he thinks it’s something incriminating about _her_ , because her hands are shaking and she looks terrified.

          “What the fuck’re you doing in here?” Mickey demands when he sees her. He throws the stolen six-pack of beer on a pile of dirty laundry in the corner and snatches up his pack of smokes. He takes a long drag from a cigarette and raises his eyebrows at her pale face. “ _Well?_ ”

          “Mick…” Mandy says slowly, and she keeps glancing between his face and the paper she’s holding, “…what the hell is this?”

          “What the hell is _what_?” he says, and stalks over to join her on the bed.

          She shoves the paper at him as soon as he sits down, and he blanches as soon as he sees it, recognizing it immediately.

          It’s something he did a month or so ago—he’d just started experimenting with charcoal—and it wasn’t too bad, but it was the first nude drawing he ever did. He even sort of liked it. The model was just some random guy he slept with, someone he picked up in Boystown, but he ended up staying over at the guy’s loft because the place was fucking gigantic. After the guy drifted to sleep, when Mickey stayed up wandering the place and pocketing small goods, he returned to the bed to see if he couldn’t get a few hours’ sleep. His eyes flicked over the guy; he was really, really good-looking. Relatively proud of himself for managing to get him into bed (or rather for convincing him to take Mickey to his bed), Mickey decided to dash off the drawing just as the sun was coming in through the window, while the man was still asleep. The light played magnificently off his body. Mickey actually really likes that particular drawing.

          But obviously, the one time Mickey draws another boy—completely fucking naked, no less—Mandy fucking finds it. Of course.

          Mickey grabs the drawing from her and shoves it under his body, sitting on it as though that can erase what Mandy already knows.

          “Where the hell did you get this?” Mickey asks, low and rough, and resists the urge to shake her.

          “Where the hell did _you_ get this?” Mandy asks, voice climbing higher. “M-Mickey, _please_ tell me you didn’t—”

          “Shut up!” Mickey hisses, slapping a hand over her mouth before she can finish the sentence. He glances at his open bedroom door, then snatches up a shoe lying nearby on the floor and throws it across the room, slamming the door shut. He turns back to his sister. “What the fuck, Mandy? Why the fuck were you in my room?”

          “I needed a condom!” she shouts, slapping at his arm. “Jesus, Mickey, you left it lying on the fucking floor. You’re lucky that asshole Jason Fendry couldn’t be fucked to bring protection. Dad would wipe his ass with you if he found out! What the hell?”

          “Fuck,” Mickey mutters, wiping a hand over his face.

          “Dad would fucking kill you if he even knew you were drawing,” Mandy reiterates. “Christ. You know how he feels about that shit, he’d assume you were…”

          “Banging dudes?” Mickey supplies drily.

          Mandy gives a jerky half-shrug, still looking supremely uncomfortable. “Well, aren’t you?” she points out.

          Mickey side-eyes her for a second, but she doesn’t seem to be criticizing him. She has a wry smile on her face, and after a minute he realizes that she’s teasing him. He lets out an involuntary huff of laughter, knocking their shoulders together, and then lays back on his bed. Mandy joins him after a few seconds, stealing the cigarette from between his fingers and taking a long drag.

          After a beat of silence, Mandy asks, “So how long have you been at it?”

          Mickey hesitates, but she already knows too much, so he figures it can’t hurt any to tell her more. “Four years,” he admits.

          “Shit, really?” she asks. “Fuck me, can I see some of the stuff you’ve done?”

          “I burn most of them,” he says quickly. “So there’s not really…”

          “ _Most_ of them,” she repeats expectantly.

          He glares at her, but she’s just smiling sweetly beside him, so he eventually rolls his eyes, shoves himself to a sitting position, and slides to the floor. She joins him while he tugs up the loose board, eying the door the whole time, but he forgets about it when Mandy dives into the pile of sketches, choosing to watch his sister carefully instead.

          His heart beats a little faster the longer the silence stretches on, Mandy flipping through his work without saying anything. Finally she looks up.

          “Shit, Mickey,” she breathes, and his heartrate jumps a little higher. “You’re… _really_ fucking good.”

          He raises his eyebrows, but she seems sincere, her eyes wide and her lips parted.

          He looks away. “No need to sound so surprised,” he grumbles.

          Mandy gets it, this non-thanks, and doesn’t seem to expect more. She grins at him for a long moment, then looks back down and continues flipping through the pile of sketches.

          Mickey watches her as she does, but she seems engrossed and doesn’t return his gaze. After awhile he looks away, can’t look at her as he quietly says, “Don’t tell anyone.”

          He can feel her eyes on him. When he chances a glance up, Mandy rolls her eyes at him, then goes back to perusing his work. “Obviously,” she says. “Dad would put you in the ground, and who would I steal condoms from then?”

 

* * *

 

 

          Mickey’s nineteen when he moves out of Chicago. He gets a scholarship for an art program in Long Island, and it’s nothing fancy but he’ll get to draw every day without worrying about someone finding out. The school has a relatively high rate of students that end up with steady commissions after graduation, so he seizes the opportunity to get out of the Southside. He takes Mandy with him when he goes, and she acts unfazed but he catches her doing job searches in the area three days before they even move out, so he knows she must be excited.

          They leave in the night, without telling anyone exactly what their plans are. Their brothers know the gist of it, but they don’t dare risk telling them the whole thing, refuse to even give them a specific Burough. That way Terry can’t direct his anger at them, and they have no secrets to spill. New York is far too big for even Terry to find them.

          They end up in a tiny apartment, and they have to share the bedroom because Mickey insists on setting up the second room as an art studio. There’s only one bathroom, but they even have a tiny living room/kitchen area, which slowly turns into Mandy’s spare space the way that Mickey’s studio is his. Mickey doesn’t know exactly when it happens, but one day he walks out of their bedroom and finds that almost everything Mandy owns is strewn about the living room, maybe because she spends all her time playing video games there or hanging out on the couch. He shouldn’t complain, because he commandeered the second bedroom for his art, but he does anyway, because that’s his way of things.

          “Mandy, why the fuck is all your shit in here?” he asks one morning when his sister finally wanders out for breakfast, wearing just a t-shirt and panties, her hair tied up messily on her head. She shoots him a sneer while she pours herself some coffee, not deigning to answer.

          He slams his hand down on the counter and her head jerks up, glaring at him. “Mandy!”

          “What?” she snaps.

          “Why is all of your shit in here?” he repeats, slower.

          She scrunches her face up like she’s not sure if he’s a jerk or just stupid. “Uh, are you kidding?  There’s like, no space in our bedroom. Look, I get you need your space to work or whatever, but it’s cramped as fuck sharing a room with your lazy, messy ass.”

          “Well I’m tripping over your shit trying to walk in the front door—”

          Mandy scoffs, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder, and gets to her feet. “Listen, I’ve got work. I don’t have time to listen to you bitch.” She turns and sweeps out of the room, taking her coffee with her.

          He grumbles a little to himself while he makes breakfast, because he _hates_ when she leaves in the middle of an argument, and when she leaves an hour later it’s with an airy, “See you tonight, asshole. And my friend is sleeping over, so shut the fuck up tomorrow morning, alright? I know you like to play music while you jerk off or whatever, but seriously. It’s loud.”

          Mickey’s in a really bad mood all morning; they have an unspoken rule that any sleepovers warrant having the bedroom to themselves. This is the second time she’s done this in three days, and the couch is extremely cheap and uncomfortable, not to mention littered with her crap. Mickey’s still grouchy about it when he finishes breakfast and goes to shut himself in his studio. His work reflects his poor mood; he can’t seem to stop from pressing down too hard on the paper, and he breaks three pencils before he gives up and tries to paint. He doesn’t have class or work today, so he sets up his phone on one of the longer playlists he made to help with his focus and shuts the door to his makeshift studio.

          Mickey usually uses a graffiti-style when he paints, but today everything keeps coming out inexplicably rough, less like an amateur art student and more like the kinds of designs he would do back in Chicago when he was actually spray painting bricks in alleyways. He gets more frustrated as the day wears on, nothing coming out right, and by the time he hears the front door close and his sister’s voice permeate the apartment, he’s ready to punch another hole in the wall (he doesn’t. The last time he did, Mandy screamed at him for the better part of an hour about how they can barely afford the apartment as it is without having to pay for repairs).

          “Mickey!” Mandy calls, and Mickey sighs, puts down his supplies, and shuts off his music.

          “Yeah, in here,” he shouts back.

          He can hear shuffling in the other room, and then his sister comes into the room. She leans against the door frame, arms crossed and eyes studying the wall behind him, which is lined with his progress for the day.

          “Having trouble?” she asks, voice lilted with amusement as she takes in the slash marks across multiple canvases where Mickey cut into his failures with his butterfly knife.

          “No,” Mickey grunts on principle.

          “Okay,” she says, clearly not believing him. “Anyway, have you eaten today? I’m making spaghetti for me and Ian.”

          “Yeah,” he says, and Mandy nods and shrugs off the wall. She’s about to go when Mickey says, “Hold up, who the fuck is Ian?”

          “My friend,” she says, and at Mickey’s blank look, she rolls her eyes and waves her hands in exasperation. “Remember? I told you I was bringing my friend over for tonight? I literally said it just this morning.”

          “Oh,” Mickey says, somewhat nonplussed. “Uh, okay, whatever. I still want that spaghetti, but uhm, you know…have fun, use a condom…whatever.”

          “It’s not like that,” Mandy says, pushing hair out of her face. He raises her eyebrows at her, and she flips him off, backing out of the room and saying, “Fuck off, Mickey, you don’t know shit. Stick to something you’re actually good at. Like being a gigantic cocksucker.”         

          “Only if the guy’s hot,” Mickey says, grinning wickedly, and Mandy shrieks and throws an empty spray bottle at his head, which he ducks, laughing maniacally. She slams the door behind her, and he can hear her ranting loudly about asshole brothers all the way into their bedroom.

          His conversation with Mandy lifts his spirits a little, but not enough to improve his paintings at all when he works up the energy to get started again. He’s about to give up and start tearing things apart when Mandy calls him in for dinner, and he puts the brakes on the rampage he was gearing up for in favor of getting some food. He washes his hands quickly and heads into the kitchen, unaccountably excited to see for himself the asshole unwittingly kicking him out of his own room for the night. Mickey wants to siphon off his frustration by chewing out this guy for making him sleep on the couch; he always did like being a dick to strangers, and it’s sure to improve the foul mood that’s been following him around all day.

          They’re talking at the kitchen table when Mickey comes in, heads together and smirks on their faces like they’re tweens gossiping at a sleepover. Mickey raises an eyebrow at them from the doorway, and they look up at the same time.

          “Oh, hey,” Mandy’s friend says when he notices him. He has very bright green eyes and an earnest face that reminds Mickey of an overexcited puppy. “I’m Ian. I’m guessing you’re the fuckhole brother she’s been complaining about for the last twenty minutes?”

          Mickey shoots his sister a bemused look, and she smiles innocently up at him. Mickey looks back at the kid—Ian—and finally lets out an amused noise, not really a laugh, and drops down into the seat opposite them at the table. “Sounds like my charming sister,” he says finally, pulling a plate of pasta towards him. Ian smiles widely at him, which Mickey pointedly ignores.

          He tries not to engage too much during dinner, preferring to sit back and watch Mandy and Ian banter back and forth. He finds himself glancing at Ian more often than strictly necessary, which annoys him a little, because he does not have the time or the energy to check out his sister’s fuckbuddies.

          It’s hard, though, because Ian seems to draw attention just by _being_. He has freckles all across his skin like splattered constellations and a smile that sweeps across his face like a rising sun, starting on one side and spreading slowly to the other every time Mandy cracks a joke. He laughs deep and serious, like he means it, and he shakes with it, his whole body lighting up. He tells stories like he’s from the slums, but when he looks over and catches Mickey’s eye during a particularly brutal recount of the time he broke someone’s leg with a baseball bat, Mickey can’t imagine anything being able to touch him. Can’t see a single part of him that isn’t strung with stars.

          Mickey kind of hates him a lot.

          Mandy, of course, ignores her brother’s protests and invites Ian over every day that week.

 

* * *

 

          Mickey’s twenty when he realizes that he likes Ian Gallagher.

          After that first dinner, they end up getting to know each other pretty well, mostly just because Ian comes over way too often. He sleeps there enough times that Mickey says fuck it to his and Mandy’s arrangement and reclaims his bed, leaving Mandy and Ian to curl up on her tiny twin mattress every time he stays over. It can’t be comfortable but Mickey doesn’t care; better than him having to sleep on the couch every night just because Ian doesn’t seem to have a place of his own.

          Mickey decides to ask him about it one day, when Ian comes stumbling out of the bathroom while Mickey’s making breakfast. He nods at Mickey as he passes him, reaching blearily for the coffee. He sits down across from Mickey at the table where Mickey’s eating eggs and toast like he belongs there, tired and bumbling around their apartment in the early mornings.

          “You look like shit, man,” Mickey says bluntly, biting roughly into his food.

          “Mandy kept kicking me in her sleep,” he says, voice clipped with annoyance. He takes another long drink from his mug. “Stole all the blankets too. She’s greedy as fuck at night.”

          Mickey grins at him over his breakfast. “Yeah, Mandy’s a bitch,” he agrees, ignoring the guarded look Ian throws him at the harsh insult, but he doesn’t look too offended. Mandy must talk about Mickey a lot, and in none too kind terms, in order to desensitize Ian to their particular brand of affection. Mickey ploughs on unapologetically, “Why don’t you stay at your own place if you’re so pissed about it?”

          Ian shrugs around another mouthful of coffee. “My dad and Lucy are fucking menaces. Plus my brothers are…well, way younger than me, and I mean, I love them, you know? They’re my brothers…but they like, worship me. Follow me fucking everywhere, I can’t get a minute of peace. It’s really annoying. And Lucy hates me anyway.”

          “Who’s Lucy?”

          “My step-mom,” Ian says. When Mickey continues to just stare at him, Ian waves a hand in the air impatiently and explains, “My dad cheated on her with my mom, which is why Frank—the guy I thought was my dad—hated me so much. So he shipped me off to live with Clayton and Lucy when I was like, four. And Lucy didn’t want to take me in, but she couldn’t leave a four year old on the streets of Long Island all alone. She has _some_ heart. Probably. And then my family—I mean my old family, you know—live in Buffalo, and I guess no one ever wanted to drive me back. They kept being like, ‘Oh, we’ll take him home this weekend,’ but then they put it off and put it off and put it _off_ and you know, next thing you know, it’s fourteen years later and I kind of still live with them.”

          Mickey stares at him as he finishes his little speech, slumping back in his chair and returning to sipping his coffee while he looks at Mickey over the rim of his mug. Finally Mickey lets out a low whistle.

          “Fuck, man,” he says, a laugh bubbling to his lips without permission, “no wonder nobody wants you. You just spill your life story to any old stranger? You have no boundaries whatsoever.”

          Mickey only has to wonder for two seconds whether or not he’s gone too far before Ian starts to laugh. Really laugh, too, his head thrown back, shouting his amusement to the ceiling. He laughs so long that Mickey eventually joins in, because it’s so ridiculous that he’s _this_ entertained by Mickey’s rude comment.

          “Fuck you,” Ian says when he’s calmed down a little. He kicks at Mickey’s shin underneath the table, but he’s still grinning broadly. “You’re such an asshole. Fuck you.”

          Mickey snickers and goes back to his food, but he can feel Ian’s eyes on him, and after a minute or two he looks back up. “What?”

          Ian continues staring at him for a long moment before he shrugs and says simply, “Nothing,” and goes back to his coffee.

          They don’t talk a lot after that, but it’s still nice.

 

          Ian keeps coming over too much, and at some point—around the same time that Mickey realizes that Mandy’s frequent all-nighters means that she must have meant it when she said she wasn’t dating Ian—Mickey notices that Mandy isn’t always there when Ian shows up at their door. Ian swears he just needs time away from his family, and Mickey chooses to believe that because it’s easier that way, and he spends a lot of afternoons sitting on the couch with Ian, drinking beer and watching television. He likes it, and he sees no reason to put the brakes on it. Mandy’s always on his ass about making friends, anyway—why not her best friend? Clearly Ian doesn’t mind putting up with a Milkovich, and he fits right in with them anyway, slots casually into their lives like he’s meant to be there. Mickey doesn’t see any reason to stop him.

          That is, Mickey doesn’t see any reason to put the brakes on until the day that he spends three hours in his studio painting before he realizes that everything he makes looks like iterations of the same startlingly familiar profile. As soon as he notices that, he drops what he’s holding and goes to grab a beer.

          He refuses to acknowledge what that means, that he’s been repeatedly drawing Ian to an almost obsessive degree. He doesn’t want any part of it; Mickey Milkovich does not do _feelings_. He does hookups in bar bathrooms, messy blowjobs in the alley, quick fucks in the dark. He doesn’t do feelings, and he certainly doesn’t do boyfriends.

          He drinks two beers before he returns to his studio, toting the rest of six pack. His mood improves in increments as he gets fuzzier with each beer, until he sees the paintings he made earlier and remembers what prompted his drinking in the first place. Swearing, Mickey gets up and heads out to see if there’s anything on TV to distract himself with. Fucking Gallagher. Fucking Gallagher with his fucking hair and perfect bone structure, tempting Mickey to draw him over and over. Fuck him.

          Mickey tries to forget about him.

 

          He’s not very good at that, as it turns out. He spends a solid month and a half after his realization just willing his hands to draw anything but strong jaws and green eyes and wide, happy smiles, but it’s like they’ve started taking orders from some part of his body that’s definitely a few feet south of his brain.

          It’s all Gallagher’s fault, as he decides fairly early on. It’s the way Ian laughs at all of Mickey’s jokes and makes light of his threats, too, never taking him too seriously and looking at him so warmly despite the way Mickey screams _danger! danger! don’t get too close!_ in every inch of his skin, despite the way he’s carved out of warning signs.

          Ian never seems to care; he drinks with him and eats with him and roughhouses with him as though none of that matters. At some point—sometime between Ian kicking him in the stomach by accident during a movie marathon and him pinning Ian to the floor fifteen minutes later—Mickey understands how rare this is, and that’s about when he acknowledges the precise extent of how far gone he is.

          Mickey freezes with the realization, and Ian takes his inattention as an opportunity to shove him to the side, gaining the advantage. He pins Mickey’s wrists to the ground and sits up heavily on his chest.

          “I win!” he declares, delighted.

          Mickey stares up at him, breathless at the feet of his excitement. Out of all the looks Ian’s given him since he’s known him—his pout when Mickey takes the last cup of coffee, when all his annoyance congregates in his chin; his exasperated eye-roll when Mickey makes a particularly bad joke, or the way his smile stretches up on one half of his face when _he’s_ the one that cracks a bad pun; his huffy eye-roll when Mickey frustrates him; his about-to-cry face, complete with the trembling bottom lip, when things get particularly rough at home; the way his entire face lights up when he’s happy—Mickey still thinks this is his favorite: this unrestrained glee from a hard-earned win.

          “Yeah, yeah,” Mickey grumbles, “You’re the fucking heavyweight champ. Now get the fuck off me.” He pushes at Ian’s sides to punctuate his command. Ian clamors off of him obediently, still grinning as he helps Mickey to his feet and flops back down on the couch.

          “I knew I could kick your ass,” Ian gloats as they settle back on the couch. Mickey side-eyes him over the rim of his beer bottle. “The streets of New York are way tougher than the streets of Chicago,” Ian says.

          Mickey sets his beer down harder than necessary, raising an eyebrow incredulously in Ian’s direction. “You fuckin’ kidding me?” Mickey says. “This was _one_ wrestling match! I’ve handed you your own ass way more times that you’ve beaten mine—”

          “Oh please! You’re counting that time I had the flu, aren’t you? Oh my god, that’s such a cheap shot—”

          “You didn’t have the flu, you fucking drama queen!” Mickey shouts. “You had a cold, _maybe_. And Mandy had you so hopped up on Motrin that it doesn’t even count—”

          “You’re right,” Ian interrupts him, “it _doesn’t_ count.”

          “Fuck you,” Mickey scoffs. He knocks their shoulders together hard. “You know that’s not what I meant, you dick.”

          Ian looks over at him, looking happier than ever in the face of Mickey’s very real indignation, and he pushes back at Mickey’s shoulder. Mickey rolls his eyes and looks away, but he has to press his lips together to keep from smiling.

          Fucking Gallagher. Mickey thinks he’s honestly going to be the death of him.

 

          About two months after Mickey first recognizes his own feelings—two months of laughing too much at Ian’s jokes and edging too close to him while they watch TV and talking to him too much as an excuse to watch his lips move—Ian suddenly stops coming over, no word or anything.

          Mickey tries not to care. He really, really tries. He doesn’t call to see where he’s gone, doesn’t invite him back over, and aside from one quick text conversation that consisted of Mickey asking if he was alright and Ian sending back _“fine, busy for a few days”_ with a few smiley emojis to soften the blow, they don’t have any contact at all.

          He misses him, he realizes; misses the way he wakes up more often than not to find Ian sprawled out asleep on their couch, his long limbs dangling towards the floor, his face seeming to round out and soften in sleep. He misses the freckled hands reaching out to steal the last bite of his food, misses the self-satisfied smile when he gets away with it. He misses tousled red hair in the mornings and the way he takes too long in the bathroom in the morning styling it. He misses the overcrowded apartment, the way Ian seeped into every aspect of their lives over the past few months.

          Mickey, of course, ends up caving on the radio silence. About a week after Ian’s last visit, when Mandy comes home alone for the eighth day in a row, he decides to try to inconspicuously find out where Ian’s gone. Mickey stops himself short of actually pouncing on his sister the second she walks in the door.

          “Where’s your boyfriend?” Mickey asks over dinner instead, which is just mac and cheese with beer. He’s proud of himself for managing to last the thirty-five minutes or so that she’s been home.

          They’re sitting side by side on the couch, watching some old action movie on television that Mickey’s only half paying attention to, but Mandy seems engrossed.

          “Huh?” she asks distractedly.

          “That Gallagher kid,” Mickey says as disinterestedly as possible, but the way Mandy suddenly eyes him sharply suggests that he doesn’t fully pull off casual. Maybe he went overboard pretending not to know his name.

          “Why do you care?” she asks suspiciously.

          “Don’t,” he says, shrugging one shoulder. He takes a large bite of his dinner to occupy himself, because he suddenly can’t find a position for his hands or his expression that doesn’t feel like giving himself away.

          She stares him down for another few seconds until he swallows hard and turns to give her a weird look in return, hoping she’ll write off her own doubt. After a few tense seconds she backs down, albeit reluctantly, and returns her attention to her dinner.

          “He’s visiting family in Buffalo,” she says.

          Mickey wants to ask her more but knows he can’t without raising her suspicions further, so he slumps back into his seat and finishes his dinner in silence.

          He tries not to care, throwing himself back into his artwork and straying as far from drawing actual people as he possibly can, determined not to fall into the same trap as last time. He goes for anything else, even occasionally condescending to do a nature scene or two.

          By the time midterms start a few days later, he’s strung tighter than usual and wants to unleash his energy into drawing the way he’s used to, but he doesn’t have much time. He has class every day for a week and is working or studying on his off-hours, so he spends a lot of that time tense, unable to properly siphon his pent up aggression into art until Saturday. Mickey shuts himself up in his studio as soon as the weekend hits, even though it doesn’t really matter since Mandy’s out at a party anyway. He tries to ignore how empty the apartment feels with just him in it. He shakes his head, sets up his music, and tries not to think about it.

          He starts off trying to do some of his independent pieces for awhile, ignoring schoolwork entirely. He has the first draft of this huge project due tomorrow that he doesn’t want to even look at, but when inspiration doesn’t hit after an over hour, he’s forced to give up on his side projects entirely. He reluctantly turns to the drawing pad he left lying on the floor, the beginnings of that assignment a faint outline on the page. He lays down in front of it, giving it another shot—it’s supposed to be a simple sketch related to realism and humanity, which basically means Mickey has to people watch and draw a lot—but he finds that everyone he draws still comes out looking kind of similar. Smiling. Covered in freckles.

          He throws down his pencil in irritation.

          “Can’t I get some fucking peace?” he mutters, but there’s no one around to answer.

          He puts in about four hours of work (three different drafts get crumpled up and thrown across the room in that time) before he realizes that he’s hungry. He’s pretty sure there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge and goes to scavenge for it, but he only gets a few steps out of the studio before he realizes that he’s not alone in the apartment anymore. He freezes, momentarily forgetting about food, and edges towards his bedroom. There’s a bat leaning against the wall just inside the door for occasions just such as these. A million scenarios race through his head—Terry found out why they left, managed to somehow track them down, and is here to seek violent revenge—but as he’s creeping back out into the living room with the bat held over his head, ready to strike at the first sign of movement and with horrible images of his own demise in his head, the bathroom door swings open. Mickey recognizes the shock of red hair emerging from the steam and he lets his arms fall, the tip of the bat hitting the floor with a dull clunk.

          Ian comes out of the bathroom, hair dripping and dark from the water, a towel slung loosely around his waist and hanging low on his hips. He looks better than Mickey would have imagined, if he had let himself imagine what was underneath his clothes. He’s still skinny, but muscular somehow too, filled out in all the right places. His torso narrows to a V where his defined stomach shifts into his waistline, a small trail of red hair disappearing beneath the towel. As Mickey watches, a tiny rivulet of water runs along Ian’s neck and drips onto his collar, caught on his skin. Mickey licks his lips subconsciously.

          “Shit, Mickey,” says Ian, and Mickey startles, worried he caught him staring—which doesn’t _mean_ anything, fuck—but Ian’s eyes are on the bat in his hand. “Were you gonna bash my head in or something?”

          He doesn’t sound angry; he sounds mildly amused, if anything, a small smile playing around his lips. Mickey leans the bat against the wall behind him and drags his hands over his face.

          “Fuck, no,” he mutters. “I wasn’t—I didn’t know you were here.” He pauses. “I thought you were…someone else. Never mind.”

          Ian’s still watching him, expression contemplative, and Mickey rushes on before he can come to any conclusions.

          “I thought you were visiting family or something,” Mickey says, eyes deliberately studying Ian’s face. He half wishes he would go throw on some clothes and half hopes he never gets dressed again.

          “Got back yesterday,” Ian says offhandedly, still eying the bat with slight curiosity. “I wanted to see Mandy, so I came over...she just left, I figured I’d grab a quick shower since it’s impossible to get the bathroom to myself at home…”

          He’s still eying Mickey inquisitively, like he’s not sorry about what he did but he’s wondering if Mickey’s going to tell him to leave.

          Mickey doesn’t.

          “I have clean clothes if you need,” he says instead. Friends let other friends borrow clothes, right? Nothing incriminating about two guys sharing a t-shirt. “Bottom drawer on the left,” he adds, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards his bedroom, and before he can do anything else like suggest Ian take a nap in his bed or maybe move in permanently, he cuts his eyes away and heads back into his studio, forgetting dinner entirely.

          He lays back on the floor—he’s always been able to draw better laying down, he’s not sure why—and begins trying to fix his latest attempt at the assignment.

          It’s a long process, editing and redoing and scrapping the project entirely to start over. At some point he decides that what he really needs is that bottle of cheap wine they keep in the cabinet, because if he’s going to be an art student he might as well be a _stereotypical_ art student, just to really cement his self-hatred. So he goes to grab it out of the kitchen and only then does he finally glance at the time. It’s past one in the morning.

          Mickey scrubs at his face tiredly, finally realizing his own exhaustion. He wants to go to bed, but quite apart from the fact that he has to hand in this project in less than twelve hours, he also can never sleep if he hasn’t properly finished for the day. Mickey uncorks the wine with a sigh and steps back out into the living room. The light from the full moon pours in through the window—they never got around to purchasing blinds—and on a quick sweep of the room Mickey notices that Ian’s asleep on the couch. He checks his bedroom, but Mandy’s not home. Mickey considers waking him up to tell him to head out, but ultimately decides against it; he looks exceptionally peaceful. Before he can think too much about it, Mickey grabs a spare blanket out of the closet and drapes it over Ian, who snuffles a little in his sleep but doesn’t wake. He rolls over onto his side, snuggling a little closer to the sheet. A tiny smile flashes over Mickey’s face before he catches himself, and he hurriedly returns to his homework.

          He shuts the door softly behind him, cognizant of his guest, and turns his music on low as he settles back down on the ground. He takes a slow sip of the wine and picks up his pencil.

          He works for another hour, his concentration unexpectedly more focused after his brief break. His hand sketches almost absentmindedly, but he’s very aware of what he’s creating as his fingers shade underneath a cheekbone and around a hard jaw, the outline of a sleeping face brushed with moonlight taking shape on the page. The wine slowly dwindles beside him, and the more he drinks, the less he cares about what he’s drawing. It reminds him of that charcoal drawing he did at sixteen, but this model, he thinks, is far more beautiful. A boy made of sunlight. Sunshine dusted in moonbeams.

          He’s so engrossed in his project that he doesn’t notice when the door opens behind him until the newcomer creeps up behind him and folds himself down on the floor at his side.

          “Mickey?”

          Mickey jumps and twists on the spot. Ian blinks back at him, rubs sleep out of his eyes, and peers over his shoulder. Mickey flings a hand out, trying to cover the paper, but he can tell it’s too late as Ian slowly raises his eyes to Mickey’s, a stunned expression crossing his face.

          “Are you…were you drawing me?”

          “No,” Mickey says sharply, but even he knows that on him, a furious expression is as good as a blush.

          Ian reaches forward, looking hypnotized, and settles his hand over Mickey’s on the page, pushing gently. Mickey doesn’t resist, resignedly letting Ian uncover the drawing. He releases Mickey’s hand and leans over further, studying the picture intently. Mickey keeps his eyes on Ian’s profile, and as the silence stretches on, he tugs his bottom lip into his mouth and bites down hard enough to hurt.

          He doesn’t mean to rush him, but his nerves eventually overtake him. Mickey opens his mouth to snap at him when Ian finally looks up. Mickey expects him to criticize him, tell him that the likeness is all wrong or maybe that he’s going to run away forever now that he knows Mickey fucking draws him in his sleep (friends give each other clothing and then spends hours drawing them asleep in said clothing, right?), but he instead sits back and says, “It’d be better with a real-life reference.”

          Mickey freezes, staring at him, that slow smile spreading across Ian’s face like dawn. Mickey narrows his eyes, trying to figure out if he’s kidding, but Ian just keeps looking back at him with that stupid smile on his face. Eyes never leaving him just in case that sure expression flickers, Mickey reaches down and picks up his pencil.

          Ian scoots over a little as soon as he does, giving Mickey room to lay back down, and Ian goes to sit in front of him instead. Mickey flips to a blank page as Ian shifts around, getting comfortable. When Mickey looks up, Ian just sits there for a few seconds, his legs crossed, his smile turning mischievous.

          “What?” Mickey asks.

          “How you want me?”

          “What?”

          “You’re the artist. Position me.”

          Mickey eyes him for a few more seconds, just to be sure that this isn’t a joke, but Ian returns his gaze steadily. Mickey pushes himself onto all fours and does an awkward crawl-shuffle towards him, and Ian watches him come closer and closer until he’s right in front of him, and Mickey reaches one hand up to wrap around Ian’s arm, dragging it down so that his elbows rest on his knees, then clasps his hands together and lets them fall on the floor in front of him, his back somewhat hunched over, but he looks relaxed regardless. Mickey kneels to compensate for the height difference as he pushes a hand through Ian’s hair, exacerbating the slept-on look, and when he draws back he realizes that they’re inches apart in the dark. Ian lets out a shaky breath against Mickey’s cheek.

          “Anything else?” Ian whispers.

          Mickey hesitates, aware that Ian can feel the speed of his breathing against his face and see the flush of his skin through the dark. He shakes his head. He ignores the indecipherable look in Ian’s eyes and goes back over to his drawing pad, picks up his pencil, and begins to sketch.

          Ian is a boy made of comets, Mickey’s come to know. Red and gold and lighting up the night, sizzling with energy. He does everything full force, leaving ashes and stardust in his wake, setting himself aflame. Impossible to look away from, even when he’s self-destructing. He hurtles through everything, never once sitting still.

          Seriously, _never_ sitting still.

          “Jesus Christ, stop fidgeting,” Mickey grumbles after a few minutes in silence, “You’re throwing me off.”

          “I’m not fidgeting,” Ian protests. As if to prove his point, he clenches his fists even tighter than he had been already. Thin lines of tension thread through the muscles in his shoulders and legs, and Mickey can tell he’s trying very hard not to move at all.

          “I know, and it’s making your face twitch. Do you ever stop moving?”

          Ian cracks a wry smile. “I want to jiggle my leg so bad right now,” he admits. “Okay, I’ll stop twitching.” His eyebrows draw together and his nose wrinkles in concentration, and Mickey’s torn between wanting to hit him and wanting to laugh.

          “What the fuck, are you being serious right now?”

          “Yes!” Ian hisses out from between where he’s pressed his mouth shut, trying to keep his entire face immobile.

          Mickey watches him struggle for another few seconds before he bursts out laughing. A mildly offended look crosses Ian’s face, but he’s still trying to stay motionless, so the indignity doesn’t come out in full force.

          “Dude, you look constipated,” Mickey says.

          “I’m trying to be helpful!”

          “Okay, okay. Here. Just…chill.”

          Ian struggles to look relaxed, trying so hard for casual that he misses it by a mile. Mickey lets him for a solid twenty seconds, fighting back a laugh, which he manages with moderately more success than before. Eventually Mickey takes pity on him and throws his pencil down and goes back over to him.

          Mickey crouches in front of him and reaches out, only hesitating a second before using his fingers to smooth out the wrinkles that formed on Ian’s forehead in his intense concentration. Ian, surprisingly, does relax a little under his touch, so Mickey trails his hand down Ian’s face without thinking, but Ian doesn’t pull away.

          “Chill,” Mickey breathes, but it’s not so much of a command this time as it was before, more like him pointing out that this was what he meant when he said it earlier. This, Ian leaning into his touch while Mickey runs the pads of his fingers over his cheekbones, his jaw, his chin, all under the pretense of loosening the rigidity in his skin.

          Ian nods a little, staring up at him with his huge green eyes, and Mickey can’t help himself: he drags his thumb over Ian’s bottom lip next, applying pressure when he reaches the middle so that Ian’s mouth relaxes too, falls open the smallest bit where Mickey’s thumb is pressing down. Mickey wants to say something, but the words get lost. He can’t stop staring at Ian’s mouth, so pliant against his finger, and Ian, just sitting there staring up at him with a mess of bedhead and wearing Mickey’s t-shirt, his hands still folded where Mickey placed them. He looks very young and innocent in the pale light of the moon, unmarked, unclaimed, and Mickey can’t believe how much he wants to mottle that pale skin with bruises from his teeth and lips and fingers.

          Ian blinks and Mickey inhales shakily, coming back to himself a little. He hastily withdraws his hand, but Ian reaches up and grabs his wrist before he can pull it back too far. Mickey stares down at him, and Ian just looks back, passive, his lips turning down into an infinitesimal smirk.

          Mickey watches him on suspended breath for half a second before he takes the bait.

          Mickey presses forward, and he sighs a little when their mouths meet. Ian doesn’t waste time on reveling in it; he fists his hand into the fabric of Mickey’s work shirt, nails scrabbling at his side through the material, and pulls him down on top of him as he lays down. Mickey has to brace himself on the floor beside his head with one hand, the other still busy in his hair, but he doesn’t mind when the new position lets him press against nearly every inch of Ian’s body. He opens immediately when Ian probes at the seam of his mouth, meeting his tongue with a kind of desperate relief when Ian licks into his mouth.

          “Relaxed like that?” Ian pulls back enough to whisper, and Mickey laughs, unclenching his nails from Ian’s ribs long enough to swat at him.

          “Fuck off, douchebag,” he says, the end of his sentence getting lost in a groan when Ian noses at the crook of his neck and starts sucking at a spot below his jaw. “Fuck,” Mickey mutters, rucking up Ian’s shirt, “Okay, you win. Clothes off, now.”

          Ian huffs a laugh against the side of his neck and lifts his arms obligingly, letting Mickey sit up on top of him and strip off his shirt. Mickey feels Ian’s large hands settle easily around his hips while he’s working off his own, thumbs rubbing at the bones of his hips, and then Ian is on him again, surging up to claim his mouth. The force of it pushes Mickey back so that he’s sitting on his lap, thighs falling open easily to straddle him.

          Mickey lets Ian kiss him for a minute, arms around his waist, before he scrambles back, breaking Ian’s hold on him. He lands on his ass and has to wiggle a bit to get his pants past his thighs, but then Ian’s there helping him pull them off, throwing them somewhere to the side and then dragging off his own boxers.

          (Why Ian thought sleeping on someone else’s couch in just underwear and a borrowed t-shirt is anyone’s guess, but Mickey doesn’t think he minds, not when he pulls Ian on top of him and kisses a line down his throat and can smell his own scent underneath the borrowed soap and Ian’s still-lingering cologne and, beneath it all, the inalienable smell of _Ian_. It’s so, so good—better than just seeing Ian wearing his t-shirt.)

          Ian has just clamored on top of him again when he pulls back just slightly. Mickey digs his nails into Ian’s arms, keeping him close even as he moves away, but Ian only looks him in the eye and asks, “How do you want to do this?”

          Mickey throws a leg over his waist and pulls him closer, can feel Ian’s cock against the cleft of his bare ass, and if the way Ian moans and flattens him on his back is any indication, muttering, “I want you to get on me, man,” while grazing his teeth along Ian’s ear is probably the right answer.

          Ian grinds against his ass for a moment, sucking desperately on his neck. Mickey has to push him back just long enough to turn over, bracing himself on his forearms, and he might feel ridiculous on his knees with his ass in the air in front of his sister’s best friend, but then Ian has his hands on him again, kneading at his ass.

          And then Ian mutters, “Shit, do you have a condom and everything?”

          Mickey drops down flat on his stomach, swiveling his head back to look at Ian. He deadpans, “Oof. Mood-killer.”

          Ian laughs and smacks at his ass, then starts talking before Mickey can snark back about it. “Fuck you, I’ll go in dry. See how you like that for setting the mood.”

          “Alright, alright,” Mickey says, grinning now, “Second drawer next to my bed. Hurry your ass up, fuckface, I think I’m lying in paint.”

          Ian rolls his eyes and hefts himself to his feet. Mickey watches him go, resting his head down on his forearms while he waits. Ian returns less than a minute later, brandishing the bottle and foil packet like priceless spoils, and drops back down to the floor between Mickey’s spread legs. Mickey shifts back to his hands and knees, and only has to wait a few seconds for Ian to get the lube open and press a slicked-up finger into Mickey. Mickey grunts appreciatively and presses back, urging him in deeper.

          “Why didn’t we just both go to the bedroom, by the way?” Ian asks conversationally, like finger-fucking some dude’s ass on his apartment floor is an appropriate time to talk logistics.

          “What part of me lying in paint sounded good for my bedsheets, man? _Fuck_ ,” he adds, when Ian presses a second finger in and starts to stretch him further, possibly as retribution for his backtalk.

          He doesn’t realize Ian leaned in until he can feel his breath on his neck, and somehow Ian manages to make it teasingly hot when he murmurs, “You pretentious art-student types…all the fucking _same_.” He punctuates the last word with a particularly deep thrust, and when he curls his fingers just right, he hits Mickey’s prostate and Mickey bucks forward, sliding back down to his elbows.

          “ _Fuck_ ,” Mickey mutters. He takes a moment to get his bearings before he can properly spit out, “Fuck you,” but it doesn’t have the bite he was hoping for, especially when Ian slides in a third finger and Mickey thinks he’s going to combust if Ian doesn’t start fucking him _now_. “Fuck, okay, I’m not some blushing virgin,” Mickey snaps. “Get in me.”

          Ian doesn’t say anything, but Mickey thinks he’s probably giving him a _yes, dear_ face as he pulls his fingers out and tears open the condom packet. He twists to check, but Ian just looks into it, a flush creeping up his neck already and his long fingers fumbling with the condom packet in his hurry. Mickey smirks a little as he settles back down, but then Ian pushes in and Mickey’s smugness evaporates. He bites his lip to hold back his grunt. Although the foreplay was minimal and the dark made it hard to see, Mickey still hadn’t been expecting him to be so… _big_.

          “ _Jesus_ ,” he mutters when Ian finally bottoms out, and can feel Ian freeze behind him. The hand on his shoulder tightens a little.

          “You okay?” Ian asks.

          “I’m fine, fuck,” Mickey gasps. When Ian still doesn’t move behind him, he shakes his ass a little, making them both groan. “You gonna put some work in or are you gonna just sit there staring at the back of my head all night?”

          “Asshole,” Ian mutters, and he punctuates the insult by pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in, and Mickey pitches forward as Ian starts to rock back into him again and again. He somehow just knows to go rough, the way Mickey likes it.

          Mickey wants to say something else but his brain seems to have turned to soup, every neuron narrowed down to Ian: Ian’s nails pressing crescent-shaped bruises into his shoulder, Ian’s groans behind him as he continues to pound into him, Ian’s cock filling up his ass. He grinds back against him, meets him thrust for thrust, trying to pull him in deeper each time.

          Time slows; Mickey doesn’t know how long he’s been spread out on the floor listening to Ian’s gasps and his own moans filling up the silence, but he suddenly knows that he needs _more_.

          Balancing is a struggle, but Mickey manages to rest on one arm while the other reaches down to jerk himself off. Ian notices, doesn’t stop him but must recognize he’s getting close, because he does what he can to help him along. If Mickey were more lucid he might realize that this means that Ian’s close too, but then Ian’s laying over him, shifting forward to press his entire body against Mickey’s back, and the movement gets him in deeper and hits Mickey just right.

          Mickey lets out a brand new string of curses, mushing together swears that don’t even make sense combined, his hand speeding up where it’s stripping his cock. Ian groans in response to his ramblings, pressing his lips against the top of Mickey’s spine and scrapes his teeth over the skin there.

          “Come on,” Ian mutters, still pounding against that spot hard, relentless, “Come _on_ , Mickey. Fucking come, Jesus.”

          And Mickey does, with a shout that makes him grateful they’re home alone. He continues shoving back on Ian’s cock, harder than before, riding out his orgasm for all it’s worth.

          He struggles to stay still when it’s over and not slump into a heap on the ground, but Ian’s still rocking into him, his rhythm lost. Mickey can feel his accelerated breathing where Ian’s open-mouthed against his back, and Mickey’s so oversensitive that it almost hurts, but he keeps pushing back languidly, trying to keep up with Ian and murmuring, “That’s it. Come on Ian, _fuck_ , you’re so close, _Ian_ ,” and it’s on an exaggerated groan of his name that Ian comes with a loud, broken, _“Mickey._ ”

          He basically collapses on top of him, and Mickey drops to the floor without complaint, his limbs finally giving out with all of Ian’s unsupported weight pressed against him. He doesn’t mind though, just lays there with his head on his arms and his eyes closed, feeling his heartrate slowly return to normal while Ian’s breathing stabilizes against his neck. When he thinks Ian can take it, he elbows him gently in the ribs and says, “Get off me, you fucking giraffe.”

          Ian huffs out an exhausted laugh but pulls out carefully and rolls over, landing on his back next to Mickey. When he doesn’t say anything, Mickey opens one eye. Ian’s just staring at him, looking peaceful, but as soon as they make eye contact he turns toward the ceiling—and bursts into laughter.

          “What the fuck?” Mickey asks. Ian doesn’t answer, too lost in his hysterics. Mickey grins despite himself and reaches out to poke Ian in the ribs. “What the fuck?” he repeats, but Ian’s laughter is infectious, and he finds then that he’s laughing too, uncontrollable and happy.

          They take several minutes to calm down. Mickey sobers first, but Ian follows soon after, and when he does he flings an arm dramatically over his eyes and says, “ _Ugh_ , I can’t believe we just did that.” Before Mickey can even work up the energy to properly get offended, Ian continues, “I mean, Mandy’s supposed to be my _beard_. You know, at work and stuff. There are actual people at that bar that think we fuck on our mutual breaks. Shit! I can’t believe I just fucked my girlfriend’s _brother_. That’s so trashy.”

          Mickey snorts and stretches a leg out so that he can dig his toe into Ian’s thigh. “Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be mortally wounded at your betrayal. It’s such a shock that her gay brother would want to hook up with her hot gay best friend. I mean, who could have seen this coming?”

          Ian flings one long arm out, and it falls against Mickey’s chest in a facsimile of a slap. “Shut up, you shithead. You never know what counts as treachery with Mandy.”

          Mickey rolls his eyes and pokes him with his foot again. “She’ll get over it.”

          “You better hope so,” Ian says direly, “She’ll come after you first. Sleeping with her best friend-slash-boyfriend? You’ll be the number one priority on her shitlist.”

          “Ooh, I’ve never been there before. Sounds terrifying. You think the badass ex-con from the Southside can kick a scrawny teenage girl’s ass?”

          Ian finally drops his serious demeanor to raise an eyebrow at him. “You think the bartender badass with a baton will lose to the artist from New York? What are you gonna do? Throw your paintbrush at her?”

          Mickey kicks him, which only makes Ian laugh, so Mickey does it again, and again, but the more he kicks him the harder Ian laughs. Eventually Mickey’s forced to roll on top of him, his hand slipping into his hair and his mouth shutting Ian up in the most effective way he knows how.

 

          Mandy finds them in the morning when she finally comes home and finds them passed out naked in Mickey’s bed, where they collapsed after round two, paint stains be damned. Mickey wakes up to her watching them from the doorway, her hands on her hips and her eyebrow raised. Her mouth is pressed together in what could either be irritation or reluctant delight, but Ian has a warm arm around his waist and a lightly snoring face pressed into his shoulder, and Mickey can’t find it in him to care about assessing Mandy’s mood when he’s so warm and content with early-morning, just-got-fucked serenity.

          (Later, when Ian wakes up and they wander out into the kitchen to where Mandy’s making omelets and bacon, they all crowd around the tiny table. Somewhere between Ian saying, “You’re the best girlfriend ever,” around his first mouthful of omelet and Mickey saying, “You’re gonna give me heart disease,” after his sixth piece of bacon, Mandy fixes them both with hard stares and says, “You’re my best friends, so I don’t know which one of you to threaten. So just know that if _either_ of you break the other’s heart, I will have to hunt whoever did it down and murder him. So no fucking this up. Also, I want to be maid of honor and I look shitty in pink.” Then she smiles sunnily and goes to grab more coffee. Mickey stares after her in annoyed shock until Ian runs his foot soothingly up the inside of his leg and presses a tiny kiss to his cheek when he gets up to use the bathroom.)

          Mickey starts to practice drawing models a lot. He thinks that Ian, silhouetted against the dying sun and smiling softly in his direction, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

 

* * *

 

 

          Mickey’s twenty-one when his father dies.

          Iggy shows up at their door one day, wild-eyed and agitated, and Mickey barely hands him a beer before Iggy’s going off on a rant that Mickey can hardly follow. He sits on the couch and watches Iggy pace and waits for his brother to calm down.

          “…fucking shanked him! Right in the middle of the fucking prison yard! We’re Milkoviches, man, f-fucking _Milkoviches_. That’s supposed to mean shit—and n-now Joey’s gone back to jail and now that Dad’s dead he probably…he won’t…Nobody fucking knows that we mean business! What if people try to gang up on him there? I mean… _fuck_ …” Iggy takes a deep breath and a deeper sip of his beer. “I couldn’t fucking stay in that house any more, man. I c-can’t…I’ve been looking for you for two weeks. New York’s fucking huge…I’m lucky you two fucking idiots still buy too much pot, it wasn’t too hard to trace the dealers…and one of them gave me your apartment, I-I didn’t…I wouldn’t have come if Dad was still…”

          Mickey’s going to cap the fucker who gave them up so easily, but he has more pressing matters to handle at the moment.

          “Ig, man, relax,” he says, hoping up a hand to stem the flow of his brother’s nervous speech. Mickey sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, we don’t really have the room…Mandy’s got too much shit and Ian never fucking leaves…” Mickey gestures helplessly around the living room, still strewn with most of his sister’s possessions and now with his boyfriend’s spare books and shoes and video games added to the mess, and the bedroom’s even worse— “…but you can crash on the couch. For a few days only! But after…”

          Iggy nods enthusiastically, still looking unnerved. “Of course, man, of course. I’ll probably set up a few blocks down, there was this building with hella low rent control, and the landlady there…she’d definitely give me a discount if I make a sweet enough offer…”

          Iggy doesn’t move out in a few days. He settles in smoothly with the rest of them, and nobody tells him explicitly but he figures out which Milkovich Ian is really sleeping next to at night and doesn’t bat an eye. They have fun, drinking beer and all throwing down for rent and falling asleep in piles at night. But the fact remains that there are now four people living there and they just don’t have enough room, yet Mickey can’t bring himself to kick anyone out. He doesn’t even know who he would ask to go. By the time a month has passed, Mickey’s going crazy with so many people in the tiny apartment, but to his surprise as much to as anybody else’s, he’s not the one eventually who brings it up.

          “Yo, Ian, man,” Iggy calls from where he’s sprawled out on the couch, one arm thrown over the back and his feet propped up on the armrest, “what the fuck are you doing?”

          Mickey, who’s been sitting on the floor drinking beer and chatting with his brother while they watch TV, leans around the couch to see what Iggy’s looking at.

          Ian shoots them a fleeting smile but doesn’t answer, just keeps circling the apartment and throwing his possessions into his backpack as he goes. Mickey and Iggy exchange a glance, but Ian only really acknowledges them to say, “Hey Mick, you still got my morning pills in the bathroom?”

          “And the night ones,” Mickey says, nonplussed.

          Ian nods and heads into the bathroom, and a few seconds later they can hear him riffling through the medicine cabinet.

          “Uh—” Iggy starts.

          “I’ll go,” Mickey sighs, and he sets his beer down and follows Ian into the other room.

          He leans against the door, arms crossed, and watches Ian shift through the cabinet. Ian pointedly refuses to acknowledge him, so after a minute Mickey clears his throat.

          “Uh, you wanna tell me what you think you’re doing?”

          Ian barely glances at him over his shoulder. “Packing,” he says, unhelpfully.

          Trying to at least somewhat conceal his panic, Mickey shrugs off the wall and spins Ian around by the waist, pressing him back against the sink. He takes it as a good sign that Ian doesn’t push him back, but actually smiles a little, pressing almost unconsciously closer.

          “You going somewhere?” Mickey asks.

          Ian sighs, the smile dropping instantaneously. His hands settle on Mickey’s arms and, though they tense, they still aren’t pushing him away. “There’s a lot of people here,” Ian starts, mouth twisting unhappily. “I didn’t mean to, you know, throw all my stuff here. It just sort of happened. But there’s not too much room, and I’m the only one with somewhere else to go. So I figured…”

          “What?” Mickey snaps, hands tightening on Ian’s hips. “You figured, ‘Eh, fuck it, I’d rather live with a couple of rich-bitch assholes who pretty much hate me than three people who actually _want_ me there?’”

          “To be fair, only Lucy hates me,” Ian points out. He evidently notices how worked up Mickey’s getting, because his grip loosens and he runs his hands up and down Mickey’s arms instead, trying to soothe him.

          Mickey frowns. He has to look away, and he’s staring at his own curled toes when he mutters, “Nobody should hate you.”

          Ian barks out a laugh that he quickly stifles, but Mickey’s cheeks are already red.

          “What was that?” Ian asks gleefully. He pokes at Mickey’s collarbone. “Mick?”

          Mickey still can’t look at him. He surges forward instead, his arms sliding around Ian’s waist and his face pressed into his neck, and he mumbles, “Don’t go.”

          Ian doesn’t hesitate wrapping his arms around Mickey’s back, and he presses a kiss to the top of his head and says simply, “Okay.”

          They stay like that for a suspended moment before they hear scoffing from the doorway. Mickey jumps back like Ian’s suddenly burning him and looks over to see Mandy rolling her eyes at them both.

          “You fucking idiots,” she says fondly. “ _I’ll_ just move in with Iggy. I can distract the husband while he seduces that poor landlady to score us the good apartment. He’s right, that building’s way cheaper, and I’m not making enough to split the rent on this place. We’ll be like, a block over, and you dumbasses can stay here. It’s perfect.”

          They make half-hearted protests, of course—well, Ian does, while Mickey’s already packing up his siblings’ things—but she’s right: It makes sense. Within a week Iggy comes strolling back into the apartment, smiling with that after-sex glow, and announces that they can move in tomorrow. By that same time next day, Mandy and Iggy are both holding their suitcases at the door, and Mickey grabs them both into a rough hug before pushing them out into the hallway, shutting the door on their retreating backs. Before he knows it they’re gone and he’s _living_ with his _boyfriend_.

          He doesn’t quite know how it happened, but Ian, knowing him far too well, doesn’t give him time to think about it. That afternoon they fuck on every available surface, and Mickey doesn’t have the energy to have a relationship crisis before he falls asleep that night.

 

* * *

 

 

         Mickey’s also twenty-one when he falls in love.

          He’s riding Ian on the double bed they bought when they first moved in together, his thighs burning as he grinds down onto Ian’s lap, and Ian’s murmuring feverish praises into his ear and pressing intermittent kisses and bites to his neck while his hand works Mickey’s dick to the same rhythm to which Mickey’s rocking down on him. Mickey drags his nails down Ian’s back and throws his head back when Ian thrusts up just right into his sweet spot the way he’s been doing every now and again when he thinks Mickey’s getting too comfortable. The pace is slower than usual, giving Ian plenty of time to lavish his throat in bruises, and Mickey hauls him up for a proper kiss and thinks he could stay like this forever.

          Ian moans into his mouth when Mickey slides one hand into his hair, tugging to the right side of hard and dragging his tongue over Ian’s. Ian’s hips jerk up almost of their own accord, thumbing over the head of Mickey’s cock. The move has Mickey groaning too, low and guttural. Ian pulls back to press his face back into Mickey’s neck, just breathing him in while he continues to lazily but forcefully thrust up into him.

          “Ian,” Mickey breathes, and Ian breathes out shakily against his throat. Mickey scrabbles helplessly at the back of Ian’s neck, his eyes squeezing shut as Ian’s pace picks up, forcing Mickey to ride him harder, faster, and he pulls Ian back up for another kiss, two, and then he’s coming, pressing countless kisses to his mouth and cheeks and chin—“I love you, fuck, _Ian_. I love you, I love you—”

          Ian lets out a shaky gasp and comes too while Mickey’s still shuddering through his release, and Ian doesn’t seem capable of speech but he clutches at him tighter and Mickey isn’t sorry he said it, isn’t sorry when he realizes he’s _still_ saying it, panting it while he comes down from his high.

          Ian finishes but he doesn’t pull out and Mickey doesn’t move. He’s oddly comfortable sitting on his lap, Ian’s softening cock on his ass and his arms tight around him.

          Ian presses his lips to the side of Mickey’s face and whispers it against his hairline: “I love you too.”

          Mickey closes his eyes, turns his head to press a kiss to the closest part of Ian he can find, thinks the words again.

          He’s twenty-one when he falls in love.

          (Or at least he’s twenty-one when he admits it—looking back he thinks he fell in love much, much earlier than that.)

 

* * *

 

          Mickey’s twenty-two when he realizes that he never draws anything but Ian anymore.

          When he does notice, he doesn’t really mind. Ian’s stretched out on their bed with a warm, dopey smile on his face. His arms are cradling his head and he looks somewhat like a celestial cat, the early-morning sunlight illuminating the pale line of his body, lighting up his hair and casting his back into a kind of ethereal glow all the way down to where the blanket is pooled around his waist. From where he’s leaning against their headboard Mickey stretches out a leg to toe the sheets down a little further, and Ian cracks one eye open and smirks.

          “I thought you _weren’t_ gonna do a nude drawing today,” Ian says slyly as Mickey’s foot continues to maneuver the blankets so that more and more of Ian’s bare ass is exposed.

          “You’re not nude,” Mickey points out, finally withdrawing his foot just shy of fully exposing Ian’s backside. Ian scoffs and Mickey jabs at his neck with his pencil. “Models don’t talk,” he reminds him, and Ian casts him one more haughty look before shutting his eyes again. Mickey goes back to drawing and they’re quiet for another few minutes before Mickey speaks up again.

          “We got the grades back on that clay assignment by the way,” Mickey says idly as he shades in the space under Ian’s cheekbone.

          “Oh yeah?” Ian says lazily.

          “Yeah…got a 95 on it.”

          Ian’s eyes flick open and he sits up, ignoring Mickey’s protests, and grabs his fact in his large hands. He presses a quick but firm kiss to Mickey’s lips and says, “That’s awesome!”

          Mickey ignores the flush trying to creep its way up his neck at Ian’s praise. “Uh-huh. The professor said the only critique was that I wasn’t branching out enough in my artistic style or something.”

          Mickey presses his foot into Ian’s stomach again, forcing him back down so that he can keep sketching him. Ian goes, laying on his stomach again but keeping his eyes trained on Mickey, who’s peering intently at his work and avoiding Ian’s gaze.

          “I thought you _were_ branching out,” Ian says, his chin jutting out in by proxy irritation. “In what world would you have ever worked with clay before? Get in a lot of pottery classes on the Southside?”

          Mickey gives a small snort of laughter. “Yeah, tons,” he says sarcastically. “The whole reason I left was because the house had too many of those little clay bowls, there wasn’t any room for people anymore.”

          Ian smiles, and Mickey pokes at the corner of his mouth until he schools his expression back to normal so that Mickey can start tracing his upper lip. “Seriously, though,” Ian persists, “what’s she talking about?”

          Mickey hesitates, fiddling with his pencil and staring down intently at his paper. He has no intention of actually answering when he goes to erase a nonexistent mistake, but Ian reaches out and jabs at his stomach. Mickey flinches and tries to ignore him, but Ian keeps at it until Mickey finally grabs his wrist to stop him. Ian doesn’t extract his hand but pulls it back enough to entangle their fingers. Mickey sighs and finally looks over him, but Ian’s just lying there, watching him expectantly and tapping his fingers along Mickey’s knuckles.

          “I sort of keep…drawing you,” Mickey admits reluctantly, choosing to examine where their hands are connected rather than look at Ian’s reaction. “Like, everywhere. Fucking freckles on everyone, and all my coloring is green and orange, and uh…you know…the pictures. With the models. I, uh…always use you as a model.”

          Ian jerks up in surprise, and when Mickey peeks at him, he can see that his mouth has fallen open a little. Mickey squeezes his hand, still only looking at him indirectly, and Ian settles a bit, relaxing back onto the mattress. Mickey gives his fingers one last squeeze before releasing him. Ian quickly folds his arms back under his head and resumes his position, and Mickey gratefully goes back to his sketch.

          After a minute’s silence, Ian speaks.

          “So, uh…”—Mickey looks over to see him smiling slyly, and his stomach drops—“…you can’t stop drawing me, huh?”

          Mickey smiles bashfully and decks him in the shoulder lightly. “Come on, man. Shut the hell up.”

          “Can’t get me out of your head, huh?” Ian teases, but his eyes are bright and he looks, more than anything, pleased. “Can’t stop thinking about me long enough to make _anything_ else? Would you say I’m…your muse?”

          Mickey ducks his head and goes back to his shading, concentration fixed firmly on the paper before him. His pencil digs into the page a little harder than before. “I fucking hate you.”

          “You obviously don’t hate me, Mick,” Ian says, tone light. “You obviously _love_ me. Butterflies-in-your-stomach, can’t-stop-thinking-about-it, _love_ me.”

          “No I don’t,” Mickey insists, glaring at him and resisting the urge to stick out his tongue, “I hate you. I really do. Burning hatred, honestly.”

          Ian lurches up and reaches for him at that. He shoves the pad of paper onto the dresser to keep it from crumpling as pulls Mickey down by the waist so that Mickey slides down the bed, coming to rest on his back. Ian climbs on top of him and cages him in, hands on either side of his head. He presses his lips to Mickey’s mouth and jaw and into the crook of his neck, all the while crooning, “You love me! You love me!”

          “Fuck you!” Mickey laughs.

          He wraps his legs around Ian’s back and uses the leverage to roll them over. Ian’s shouts turn to laughter when Mickey lays on top of him, arms around his waist and head burrowed into Ian’s neck. Ian’s laughter dies down and he runs his hands into Mickey’s hair instead, and when he turns so he’s speaking right into Mickey’s ear and says, “I love you,” Mickey kisses a line up his jaw to his mouth. He kisses Ian softly on the lips and softly murmurs, “I love you too.”

          He loves him, and everything’s alright.

**Author's Note:**

> come chill w me on tumblr: fuku-up.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Forget the Moon and Stars, He's an Entire Fucking Universe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695842) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




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